Weird...

[persephone_kore]

Obviously, quality is a good thing. So is learning.

But sometimes I get the impression that extensive study of literature winds up with someone not actually having any fun reading anymore.

(This is distinct from the persistent feeling during high school English classes that people were coming up with depressing theories for the express purpose of ruining other people's enjoyment of the books, especially mine. Now I have learned that people do this for some other purpose, obscure to me, and can't see why anyone else would be affected, or would seek out other people's opinions if they were going to be. Then again I also know that I have a different definition of "pessimistic" from some people....)

And what does it mean if I still like my own stories, but don't feel I can promote them to other writers I respect because they won't suit their standards? (And I don't just mean preferred topics, or cases where we've established that we don't care for each other's work and don't generally care for each other's recommendations.)

And why does it seem to be so much easier to pick something apart than for me to defend it as being enjoyable?

I'm not good at this game....

Comments

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - I could ramble about this for ever, with digressions into 'authorial intent' and 'what is criticism about' and 'the line between constructive and nit-picking', and 'personal issues creeping in'. But I'm swamped in work...

Yes, a lot of people take the 'picking apart' too far - but then again some people are way too sensitive and take anything less than gushing as 'oh you mean, mean person'.

Criticism is one honking, thorny issue that becomes even more thorny in fan fiction where you're dealing with FANS, who are not necessarily interested in or familiar with 'literature' anyway, not to mention sensitive, volatile and not always familiar with the 'literary' aspect. Those who DO focus on the 'literary' side tend to be shunned by many others - and are easily seen as 'toooooooooo heavy'. And some of them are, whereas some just couch their squabbling and bitching about their favourites (and their pet stories-they-hate) in more eloquent language than the gushers.

Like I said, huge subject. But yes, it's easier for me to pick something apart than to defend it too, but then I studied literary criticism many moons ago and am PAID to pick translations and texts apart *g*. Maybe another thing that comes into play for many people is that when something's good you may not notice it, but when it's bad it jumps out at you? So many would-be critics don't bother with the 'good stuff' as it seems harder to actually pinpoint.

Last thought - it's way easier for a writer to *accept* praise that isn't backed up by a 'why I liked it' than swallowing unfounded demolition, as in 'this was awful' - yet I'd still feel I wasn't helping much to simply gush unless I could say WHY. Hm.

Sorry - rambling.

[rexlapinii.livejournal.com]

Word, though.

With a heaping helping of "can I please invent a time machine, go back, and punch Jacques Derrida in the face?" But that might be my personal issues creeping in. ;)

PK, I think--well, I have an English degree and still get twitchy if I lighten up on my three-books-a-week habit, so I know--it's possible to study literature a lot and still enjoy it. And some people nitpick because they enjoy it, I think--the nitpicking is part of the fun for them, though that's not a viewpoint I "get," exactly.

The recs thing is maybe bashfulness? I dunno. It seems, and I may be reading this wrong, but it strikes me as . . . broadly similar, maybe, to recommending our stuff to my mom, after she stumbled on it when she was Googling me that one time to try and find unconventional means of getting in touch with me because I wasn't answering my phone or e-mail. She likes Harry Potter, but I wasn't sure she'd like our stories, or if they'd seem too . . . frivolous, maybe, or overly geeky.

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Nitpicking is part of the fun for some of us... yet some authors see one thing that isn't gushing and... WHAM. Flame war! Even if it's not nitpicking with malicious intent. THAT is what so many people don't get. If you're interested in writing in general I think you see things differently than if you're in fandom for the drooling and any old fic will do as long as it has what you're looking for - and to hell with silly things like structure, grammar, consistency, etc.

Recs - another can of worms, or at least if you start wondering if the reccer has more than neutral views on any author - and let's face it: certain things do colour how you see a writer. The most brilliant writer, if she's a vitriolic bitch to some poor newbie and you become aware of it - will you see her the same way? Because fandom is also so personal, no? (And, of course, let's not forget the rumours: what if you've only HEARD that writer X is a bitch and thus to be shunned, but the person you've heard it from has issues or her own?)

Recs? Another thorny issue. It's very hard to 'market' yourself or your stories without sounding like you're bragging. Who doesn't react to a little negatively to people who fish really hard for feedback, and perhaps particularly if said people wouldn't recognise decent writing if it hit them in the face?

But for the record, I am still - after years in fandom - utterly terrified of certain non-fandom people stumbling on what I write. Or some of it, anyway, as in the slashier parts. Can't help it.

I know what you mean about not getting your 'fix' of books, btw. I can think of nothing worse than being away (I have a lot of business travel) with a) nothing to read and b) battery on laptop not coping with long flights so I can read / write.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Criticism is one honking, thorny issue that becomes even more thorny in fan fiction where you're dealing with FANS, who are not necessarily interested in or familiar with 'literature' anyway, not to mention sensitive, volatile and not always familiar with the 'literary' aspect. Those who DO focus on the 'literary' side tend to be shunned by many others - and are easily seen as 'toooooooooo heavy'.

And I suppose I probably come under the "not familiar with 'literature'" and "sensitive, volatile" heading. For one thing, I probably like (for instance) FernWithy's analyses of the Star Wars prequels first because she's actually being positive about them and then because they're convincing.

I was actually thinking more about the source material than about fanfics with the picking-apart vs. defense question. People go on about how awful something I enjoy is, and I just back off and give up on talking to them instead of defending it.

With fanfic.... It sort of baffles me that someone would bother to finish a story if they have nothing good to say about it -- nobody's making them, and it was supposed to be fun. But I suppose if finding what's wrong is as much fun as you say, maybe there's a reason. (I'm trying to tell myself that "So many would-be critics don't bother with the 'good stuff' as it seems harder to actually pinpoint" even means that there might have been some enjoyment other than detailing the negatives... but then, if someone provided detailed feedback on the negatives, assuming that there were positives the person just didn't mention seems rather egotistical, doesn't it?)

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Heh - I'm plenty volatile myself when in fannish mode, although the 'literary' side is something hard to shake off when it's 'your thing' - I think I'm so tuned in to working with words that it's hard *not* to notice some things. Maybe a bit like a car mechanic can't just 'sit in a car and enjoy the drive', or at least not as easily, particularly if he hears a rattle or particularly likes the gear ratio. I'm not sure it's FUN so much as you really can't help it.

And yeah, I can see how you could back off rather than defending something - if you feel like you're either in a minority or people will react badly, silence can be golden *g*. Again, fandom can flare up quickly and possibly those who survive best know when to keep their mouths shut (and no, I never did...).

As for positives / negatives on stories, I think - and as I said - it's often the *would-be* critics who tend to see stories in 'black or white', or at least that's how it seems to me. A little more balance and effort to pick up good things in rather shaky fiction can be hard if one's gut reaction is 'ew' - and probably vice-versa - love can be blind. And hey - that's not a BAD thing, to have these gut reactions because most readers are *not* literary critics and you WANT them to have a gut reaction (preferably a positive one). "Literary types" can be as boring as hell, particularly if you put them with others. Just ask my husband, who twitches the moment I get together with other editors or translators. Like I do when he gets together with other finance people.

[yma2.livejournal.com]

From what I can gather about Lit Crit, it's bascially about inventing a load of complete bollocks and giving a good explenation for it. You can look deeply into ANYTHING if you want, so long as you realize that you're probably wrong, and everyone else is probably wrong, it's OK. That's my opinion, anyway. But I'm probably wrong. :blush:

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Eh... sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it's actually interesting. Sometimes, on the other hand, it's exceedingly annoying.

[cloudtrader.livejournal.com]

I don't know about studying literature (I'm a psych major, I study madness, otherwise known as humanity), but I do know that working in a book store has made me... I don't know, less reverant towards books? I mean, one major part of my job is to DESTROY books and magazines! I don't read books as much as I used to, even though I am surrounded by them every day. *shrugs* Maybe it is just a phase...

Oh, and I hated the picking-a-book-apart portions of English class. Grr. I think I came to hate every single book they forced me to do that with BECAUSE they forced me to do that.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Well, I think there's something of a tendency to do less of things when they're constantly available, depending on what they are. I eat dessert less often now than when I was a kid, even though I can have it whenever I want.

And yeah, I might have been neutral toward some of the things I read in English class, but wound up really sick of most of them. Possibly forced overexposure. Though I have a strange fondness for "Fall of the House of Usher," developed due to some classmates' oddball theory that the whole thing was a hoax.

(That was the year we had a teacher who said we could legitimately present any theory as long as we could support it from the text. I think they were testing her. It was pretty entertaining when she read us the major-critical-theories section of Cliff's Notes on a thing or two after discussion and it turned out we'd independently come up with almost all of them, though.)

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

Part of the reason I never took English Literature further than I had to was that I couldn't bear having to read things in such exacting detail that they became less fun. I did Music at A-Level, and it ruined my enjoyment of most of my set works, because I couldn't just sit back and listen once I'd picked them apart.

I know what you mean about overly critical reviews. Even if I really didn't like a fic, I always try to say at least two things that I liked about it, as well as some constructive criticism. I'm horribly sensitive over criticism, though I have got a bit more thick skinned with time. I get really frustrated when I get a review that is nothing more than a list of all the faults in a fic; I end up wondering why the reviewer subjected themself to the whole thing if they really hated it! It's interesting that it's mainly non-writers (or non fanfic writers, anyway) that write very negative reviews. Being on the receiving end has certainly made me a lot more careful over what I put in my reviews.

By the way, I've just got my own live journal, so I will 'friend' you. Hope that's OK.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that it's mainly non-writers (or non fanfic writers, anyway) that write very negative reviews.

Is it, though? I was personally always under the impression that people didn't start feeling obligated to find something wrong with a story until someone had suggested to them that it was required -- which usually seemed, in my experience, to come from writers who complained about the uselessness of reviews that only said, "I liked it."

But then I ran into some people who felt any review was useless unless they said what was wrong -- until they started writing, and realized writers wanted to hear good things too.

So I'm really not sure where it comes from....